THE NEW YORKER numbers of Serbs disappeared. Both groups had gone back to basics. West- ern governments had, of course, ruled out using force, and only the Germans showed any interest at this time in sanctions against Serbia. The question that Western govern- ments did focus on was whether to recognize Croatia and Slovenia as in- dependent states. Neither was viable on its own. Initially, no one chal- lenged the arguments against recog- nizing ethnic borders and thereby encouraging other groups in Eastern Europe to take an independent, possi- bly explosive course. Besides, it had become clear that Milosevic and Tudj- man were more than just mortal en- emies; operating on another level, they were also co-conspirators, who in March of 1991 had begun planning secretly to carve up the republic of Bosnia. What- ever leverage external powers might possess seemed to lie with recognition: the threat to grant it offered leverage with Milosevic; the threat to withhold it offered leverage with Tudjman. "You don't recognize Tudjman and then put pressure on Milosevic," a Whitehall official said. "That's just silly. And how can you pressure Tudjman after you have gratified his dearest wish?" Bosnia's leaders pleaded with West- ern capitals to withhold recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, fearing that if it was granted Serbs and Croats would instantly fall upon Bosnia. Macedonia, frightened of the Serbs, made the same plea. Bosnians and Macedonians ar- gued that recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would oblige them to seek independence, too, and that, in turn, would provoke Serbia. Their safety, they said, lay in being part of a multi- national state. Western capitals were wel1 aware of the stakes; the only way to contain the fighting, they knew, was to keep it from spreading into Bosnia. Bosnia's largely defenseless people live in ethnically mixed communities, and see themselves as Bosnians rather than as members of ethnic groups. Close to half the population is Muslim; about a third is Serb; and most of the rest is Croat. The rate of intermarriage be- tween the groups is high. Western diplomats argued that recognition should be withheld unless or until Serbs and Croats stopped fighting and agreed to leave Bosnia alone. Recognition was a card that could be played Just once, and playing it early could only worsen things, most diplomats and officials felt. They knew that on May 6, 1991, Serbian and Croat surrogates of Milo- sevic and Tudjman had met at Graz with maps to pin down their separate shares of Bosnia. And fighting in Bosnia, besides incorporating the pre- dictable "ethnic cleansing" -the slaugh- ter of innocents-could have a domino effect. Kosovo would probably come next on Serbia's hit list, with Macedonia not far behind. Taking and holding the same line on recognition was judged essential by E. C. members. First, there was the danger that if Germany broke ranks, and recognized Croatia and Slovenia, France would react by renewing its tie with Serbia, and the prospect of such "clientism"-the dark memories it would summon-was virtually unthink- able. Second, all parties reckoned that the negotiations leading to Maastricht had to be spared the burden of serious internal disputes. In Germany, however, public sup- port for recognition was building up. The Frankfurter Allgemeine, Germany's most influential newspaper, was for it, but Munich's Süddeutsche Zeitung, the next most influential, opposed it. Christian Democrats were calling for recognition, but their leader, Chancel- lor Kohl, was listening hard to F rançois Mitterrand, France's President, who, invoking Maastricht, got Kohl to agree that any recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would be done only by the E.C. members acting together. Yet while senior diplomats within the German Foreign Ministry opposed breaking this common front the far from predictable Genscher, their leader, was maneuvering Germany toward recognition. "There were only two f ." W arguments or It, says a estern ambassador who was in Belgrade until recently. "One was that the Serbs would be made to realize that they could not act with impunity. The sec- ond argument was German politics." German political leaders have offered various explanations of why their gov- ernment broke ranks on recognition. "People here were told only what the Serbs did, not what Tudjman did," -H--vJ.1 Aíi . . I. -! . . . : a. f3 .. l "'", N / ' 1f! I ; . __ iò.:. Ii_a ." ( 7/' @ ;;::-;''' '.lEie I'''' '\. 4&!1 t\ . _11 - '/ I i ; mi il=! , \. . t - S I a. la!.J .. I'a"i;'. m1f1 '-' rJ!'Jf' ßI ' ......_..._........ : jij j .I. . .- '1 ! e 9 _ ('r rr:l , I I' f'l ' r .,' "" \ " " 63 said one of them who opposed recog- nition. "At first, Genscher agreed with me and those who felt as I did. Then he came under pressure from the C.D. U .-C.S. U." -the alliance of Christian Democrats. "And also from his own party"-the Free Democrats. "He zigged and zagged. We should have told them to stick together until they found a peaceful solution. We should have used sanctions to put h " pressure on t em. Numerous German politicians argue that, having granted self-determination to the East Germans, they could hardly do less for others seeking to go their own way. The argument causes one to wonder what the German position on other independence movements in Eu- rope might be-in Catalonia, Corsica, and the South Tyrol, say. A major figure in the Christian Democratic alliance who took this dubious line later conceded that his government "underestimated" the consequences of recognition. "But our allies underestimated the desire for independence there," he added. "There was no good solution. The situation in the Balkans is worse than it was before the First World War." Genscher, who surprised everyone by resigning this past May, after eigh- teen arduous years as Foreign Minis- ter, looked fit and relaxed when I saw him not long afterward at his party's headquarters, in Bonn. The resort to military force by both Serbs and Croats, he noted, had dictated a change in Ger- man policy. "There were two schools of thought," he said. "One was to force the republics to stay together. The second, our position, was that the use of military force by one republic against another would set a very bad example for the successor states of the Soviet Union, some of which have nuclear weapons. Gorbachev and Eduard Shev- ardnadze agreed wIth me. I saw Gor- bachev last March, and Shevardnadze was in Bonn in ApriL" In thIS conversation, Genscher in- voked none of the familiar German arguments for recognition, among them an irresistible public and parliamen- tary tide and the moral pressure to grant self-determination. Nor did he echo Helmut Kohl's post-hoc excuse: the single-minded determination of Germany's Croat minority to have its way. I subsequently asked various officials in other European capitals and in Washington about Genscher's ar- gument-that fighting between Y ugo-